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This article is about the 9th century Baghdad scholars

For the Iberian dynasty sometimes called the Banū Mūsā, see Banu Qasi.

The Banū Mūsā brothers (Template:Lang-ar, "Sons of Mūsā") were three 9th century Persian scholars, of Baghdad, active in the House of Wisdom:

• Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (before 803 – 873) (Template:Lang-ar) , who specialised in astronomy, engineering, geometry and physics.
• Ahmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (803 – 873) (Template:Lang-ar) , who specialised in engineering and mechanics.
• Al-Hasan ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir (810 – 873) (Template:Lang-ar) , who specialised in engineering and geometry.

The Banu Musa were the sons of Mūsā ibn Shākir, who had been a highwayman and later an astrologer to the Caliph al-Ma'mūn. At his death, he left his young sons in the custody of the Caliph, who entrusted them to Ishaq bin Ibrahim al-Mus'abi, a former governor of Baghdad. The education of the three brothers was carried out by Yahya bin Abu Mansur who worked at the famous House of Wisdom library and translation centre in Baghdad.

Works

Book of Ingenious Devices

The Banu Musa brothers built a number of automata (automatic machines) and mechanical devices, and they described a hundred such devices in their Book of Ingenious Devices. Some of these inventions include:

• Valve and plug valve
• Float valve
• Feedback controller
• Automatic flute player
• Programmable machine
• Mechanical trick devices
• Hurricane lamp
• Self-trimming lamp (Ahmad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir)
• Self-feeding lamp
• Gas mask
• Grab
• Clamshell grab
• Fail-safe system
• Differential pressure

The Banu Musa also invented "the earliest known mechanical musical instrument", in this case a hydropowered organ which played interchangeable cylinders automatically. According to Charles B. Fowler, this "cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained the basic device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the nineteenth century." The Banu Musa also invented an automatic flute player which appears to have been the first programmable machine.

Book on the motion of the orbs

In physics and astronomy, Muhammad ibn Musa was a pioneer of astrophysics and celestial mechanics. In the Book on the motion of the orbs, he was the first to discover that the heavenly bodies and celestial spheres were subject to the same laws of physics as Earth, unlike the ancients who believed that the celestial spheres followed their own set of physical laws different from that of Earth.

Astral Motion and The Force of Attraction

In mechanics and astronomy, Muhammad ibn Musa, in his Astral Motion and The Force of Attraction, discovered that there was a force of attraction between heavenly bodies, foreshadowing Newton's law of universal gravitation.

On mechanics

Ahmad (c. 805) specialised in mechanics and wrote a work on pneumatic devices called On mechanics.

Premises of the book of conics

The eldest brother, Ja'far Muḥammad, wrote a critical revision on Apollonius' Conics, called the Premises of the book of conics.

The Book of the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures

The Banu Musa's most famous mathematical treatise is The Book of the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures, which considered similar problems as Archimedes did in his On the Measurement of the Circle and On the Sphere and the Cylinder.

The elongated circular figure

The youngest brother, al-Hasan (c. 810), specialised in geometry and wrote a work on the ellipse called The elongated circular figure.

See also

• Inventions in the Muslim world
• Islamic Golden Age
• Islamic science
• Islamic astronomy
• Islamic mathematics

Notes

1. When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty, Hugh Kennedy, p. 254
2. Professor Jeff Oaks, The University of Indianapolis
3. al-Nadim, Fihrist, trans. Bayard Dodge, p. 646
4. ^ Otto Mayr (1970), The Origins of Feedback Control, MIT Press
5. ^ Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific American, May 1991, pp. 64-9 (cf. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering)
6. ^ Teun Koetsier (2001), "On the prehistory of programmable machines: musical automata, looms, calculators", Mechanism and Machine theory 36: 590-1 Cite error: The named reference "Koetsier" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
7. Young, M. J. L. (1990), The Cambridge history of Arabic literature, Cambridge University Press, p. 264, ISBN 0521327636
8. [[Ancient Discoveries]], Episode 12: Machines of the East, History Channel, retrieved 2008-09-06 {{citation}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
9. Fowler, Charles B. (October 1967), "The Museum of Music: A History of Mechanical Instruments", Music Educators Journal, 54 (2): 45–49, doi:10.2307/3391092
10. George Saliba (1994). "Early Arabic Critique of Ptolemaic Cosmology: A Ninth-Century Text on the Motion of the Celestial Spheres", Journal for the History of Astronomy 25, p. 115-141 .
11. K. A. Waheed (1978). Islam and The Origins of Modern Science, p. 27. Islamic Publication Ltd., Lahore.
12. Robert Briffault (1938). The Making of Humanity, p. 191.

References

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Banu Musa brothers", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
• Rashed, Roshdi (1996), Les Mathématiques Infinitésimales du IXe au XIe Siècle 1: Fondateurs et commentateurs: Banū Mūsā, Ibn Qurra, Ibn Sīnān, al-Khāzin, al-Qūhī, Ibn al-Samḥ, Ibn Hūd, London{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Reviews: Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1998) in Isis 89 (1) pp. 112-113; Charles Burnett (1998) in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 61 (2) p. 406.
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Ahmad Banu Musa", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
• Golden Age of Persia, Richard Nelson Frye, pp. 162–163.
• D El-Dabbah, The geometrical treatise of the ninth-century Baghdad mathematicians Banu Musa (Russian), in History Methodology Natur. Sci., No. V, Math. Izdat. (Moscow, 1966), pp. 131–139.
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "al-Hasan Banu Musa", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews

v t e Mathematics in the medieval Islamic world
Mathematicians	9th century 'Abd al-Hamīd ibn Turk Sanad ibn Ali al-Jawharī Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf Al-Kindi Qusta ibn Luqa Al-Mahani al-Dinawari Banū Mūsā brothers Hunayn ibn Ishaq Al-Khwarizmi Yusuf al-Khuri Ishaq ibn Hunayn Na'im ibn Musa Thābit ibn Qurra al-Marwazi Abu Said Gorgani 10th century Abu al-Wafa al-Khazin Al-Qabisi Abu Kamil Ahmad ibn Yusuf Aṣ-Ṣaidanānī Sinān ibn al-Fatḥ al-Khojandi Al-Nayrizi Al-Saghani Brethren of Purity Ibn Sahl Ibn Yunus al-Uqlidisi Al-Battani Sinan ibn Thabit Ibrahim ibn Sinan Al-Isfahani Nazif ibn Yumn al-Qūhī Abu al-Jud Al-Sijzi Al-Karaji al-Majriti al-Jabali 11th century Abu Nasr Mansur Alhazen Kushyar Gilani Al-Biruni Ibn al-Samh Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi Avicenna al-Jayyānī al-Nasawī al-Zarqālī ibn Hud Al-Isfizari Omar Khayyam Muhammad al-Baghdadi 12th century Jabir ibn Aflah Al-Kharaqī Al-Khazini Al-Samawal al-Maghribi al-Hassar Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi Ibn al-Yasamin 13th century Ibn al‐Ha'im al‐Ishbili Ahmad al-Buni Ibn Munim Alam al-Din al-Hanafi Ibn Adlan al-Urdi Nasir al-Din al-Tusi al-Abhari Muhyi al-Din al-Maghribi al-Hasan al-Marrakushi Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi Shams al-Din al-Samarqandi Ibn al-Banna' Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī 14th century Nizam al-Din al-Nisapuri Ibn al-Shatir Ibn al-Durayhim Al-Khalili al-Umawi 15th century Ibn al-Majdi al-Rūmī al-Kāshī Ulugh Beg Ali Qushji al-Wafa'i al-Qalaṣādī Sibt al-Maridini Ibn Ghazi al-Miknasi 16th century Al-Birjandi Muhammad Baqir Yazdi Taqi ad-Din Ibn Hamza al-Maghribi
Mathematical works	The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing De Gradibus Principles of Hindu Reckoning Book of Optics The Book of Healing Book on the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity Toledan Tables Tabula Rogeriana Zij
Concepts	Alhazen's problem Islamic geometric patterns
Centers	Al-Azhar University Al-Mustansiriya University House of Knowledge House of Wisdom Constantinople observatory of Taqi ad-Din Madrasa Maragheh observatory University of al-Qarawiyyin
Influences	Babylonian mathematics Greek mathematics Indian mathematics
Influenced	Byzantine mathematics European mathematics Indian mathematics
Related	Hindu–Arabic numeral system Arabic numerals (Eastern Arabic numerals, Western Arabic numerals) Trigonometric functions History of trigonometry History of algebra

• Islamic mathematics
• Islamic astronomy
• 873 deaths
• People from Baghdad
• Persian mathematicians
• Iraqi mathematicians
• 9th-century mathematicians
• Iraqi engineers
• Iraqi astronomers
• Persian astronomers
• Iranian scientists
• Iraqi scientists